By ,
Published May 08, 2017
Now some special Sunday pickings from the Political Grapevine:
AIDS Awareness
President Obama was heckled during a rally in Connecticut Saturday by protesters apparently wanting increased Global AIDS funding. Here's what he told them:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You've been appearing at every -- every rally we've been doing. We're funding Global AIDS and the other side is not. So I don't know why you think this is a useful strategy to take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But as we've told you before -- in 2003 -- then-President George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress roughly tripled previous funding to combat AIDS in Africa. Sunday, the head of the Global AIDS Alliance wrote that President Obama's 2011 funding request is -- quote: "Well below the one billion per year he promised on the campaign trail [and] would be the smallest increase in [the program's] eight-year history."
No Regrets
Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is standing by comments he made about New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that she deemed offensive and unacceptable. Paladino had referred to Gillibrand as Senator Chuck Schumer's -- quote -- "little girl."
A Fair Shake?
And finally, a firm post-debate handshake amounted to battery. So says a candidate running for the Broward County school board in Florida.
Local media report Jaimie Levine filed a complaint with the sheriff's office saying opponent Dave Thomas squeezed her hand so hard at the end of the debate that her hand hurt days later.
Thomas calls the story nonsense.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/president-slams-republicans-over-aids-funding